NIHILISM

The Root of Revolution in the Modern Age

by Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

"What does Nihilism mean?" wrote Frederich Nietszche. "...That
the highest values are losing their value. There is no goal....There is
no
Truth, no 'thing in itself.' There is no answer to the question:
why?

Nihilism has become, in our time, so widespread and
pervasive, has entered so deeply into the minds and hearts of all men
living
today, that there is no longer any 'front' on which it may be fought."
- Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

In 1962, the young Eugene Rose undertook to write a monumental
chronicle of the
abandonment of Truth in the modern age. Of the hundreds of pages of
material he
compiled for this work, only the present essay has come down to us in
completed
form. Here Eugene reveals the core of all modern thought and life - the
belief
that all truth is relative - and shows how this belief has been
translated into
action in our century. Today, three decades after he wrote it, this
essay is
surely more timely that ever. It clearly explains why contemporary
ideas,
values, and attitudes - the "spirit of the age" - are shifting so
rapidly in the direction of moral anarchy, as the philosophy of
Nihilism enters
more deeply into the fiber of society. Nietszche was right when he
predicted
that the 20th century would usher in "the triumph of Nihilism."

"Atheism, true 'existential' atheism burning with hatred of a
seemingly
unjust or unmerciful God, is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to
grapple
with the true God... Nietzsche, in calling himself Antichrist, proved
thereby
his intense hunger for Christ." - excerpt from NIHILISM

Indeed, the Christian is - in an ultimate sense - a "Nihilist";
to him, in the end, the world is nothing, and God is all. On the one
hand, the
true Nihilist places his faith in things that pass away and end in
nothing. On
the other hand, the Christian, renouncing such vanity, places his faith
in the
one thing that will not pass away, the Kingdom of God.

Some years after writing this essay, Eugene Rose became a monk in
the
mountains of northern California with the name Fr. Seraphim. Although
he lived
his whole life in America, he has become, after his death, the most
popular
spiritual-philisophical writer in Russia today.